


Crime of the Ages.

by John_Steiner



Category: Vampires (1998)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22744969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Hauser is an immortal refugee, thinking himself safe from discovery in an abandoned city block, comes out one night to see a woman with a rapier by her side. Remember her from eighty years ago, he sees that she hasn't age a day since. Hauser must flee, lest the hunter force him to answer for his past.





	Crime of the Ages.

I'm not your average German criminal refuge. Yes, I fled in 1939, but not because of Nazi party membership or crimes against the Jewish people. I wouldn't learn until a few years later how bad things were in "The Father Land."

My crimes cannot be found in any law books, because my people were careful to avoid leaving traces of ourselves in history. Our true nature would both horrify and incite envy among mortal kind. Hiding was once easy, back when communicating across the Atlantic took weeks. Now it's less than a second to show oneself to the whole world.

Born before there ever was a United States, and indeed before there was any such thing as a "new world" I couldn't have a Social Security Number, nor did I need one. I have no need of hospitals, insurance, or even a driver's license. The city I reside in is so large that whole blocks lay in ruin yet invisible to the rest of the city.

I have an entire hotel to myself but no power or water.

Every night I go out, because it's safer to be out at night for me. Fewer eyes, and harder for them to spot me from afar. And yet... she stands across the litter-strewn street waiting for me to emerge.

The hunter carries the same rapier I remember seeing in her hand eighty years ago. Even then it was an odd enough sight to stick into memory. It marks the woman as an enforcer among our kind, particularly with the stylized pummel of her house.

There is no choice but to run, and she gives chase. I hear a pop, and find that odd for it originating from her. In the old days guns were mostly by us to slow each other down, and so they relied on the larger caliber musket ball for stopping power. This is something more of the current age.

At first, when knocked forward, I would've thought the impact pierced my body, but in flailing reach I draw back no blood. Then, I see the heel of her boot next to my face.

"Turn over, Hauser," Gretta says in her German accent.

I do, then I saw the unusual revolver in her hand and remark on it, "Old bitch learns new tricks, eh?"

"You like it?" she hisses back, "It's a shotgun in pistol form. Zey call it a four ten. I loaded it wit beanbag shells. You and I bot'h know zat guns are near useless for our kind."

"You come to punish me, eh?" I query, "Did zey tell you why I am to be hunted down? Has it been so long zat you have forgotten?"

"Trust me, Hauser," Gretta mutters with trained practice of not revealing her teeth, "My reason is as vivid as it ever has been. You know ze laws. You wrote zem back when ze black deat’h ended, and it was harder for us to take from ze mortals zose who wouldn't be missed."

"You cannot punish me for zose I kill," I dare declare.

"Is zat why you tink I am here?" Gretta looked at me confused, and then hardened her gaze while trading gun for sword. "We punish you for leaving one alive. Her name was Amelia, and she remembered who came for her in ze night. Her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren now wander ze Eart'h looking for us to slay. All. Because. Of you. How long until all the world hunts every vampire down because you showed mercy to one simple frightened girl?"

At last, came the piercing that ends my Earthly existence.


End file.
